The first ten minutes had been generous.

The last ten had been educational.

And by the twentieth minute, the Psychic Circle no longer looked like a professional paranormal team at all. They looked like six overdressed mistakes trapped in a clearing with three high-level demons, too many minions, a broken trap line, and the sickening realization that every warning the Winchesters had given them had not been territorial arrogance.

It had been mercy.

The woods beyond Maple Town had gone wrong in every direction.

The night itself felt infected now—air too cold, shadows breathing where shadows should not breathe, tree branches creaking like something above them was laughing too. The broken line pulsed red-black through the dirt. Sulfur hung low and thick. The minions prowled in twitching circles around the clearing, too thin in some places, too swollen in others, all of them born from the same ugly pocket of hell-energy the Psychic Circle had ripped open trying to prove they knew what a real hunt looked like.

The three high-level demons stood farther back, not rushing.

Watching.

Smiling.

Because predators with intelligence never hurried when prey had nowhere left to run.

Asher was on one knee in the mud, panting, one sleeve torn open and his flashlight gone. Nolan had blood on his cheek and dirt on his glasses. Trevor’s rod had bent during the first charge and now looked as useless as his confidence. Paige had cried so hard her mascara had broken down her face in black rivers. Celeste kept whispering half-finished protective phrases with shaking lips. Bianca—

Bianca was breaking.

Not openly yet. Not fully.

But the edges were there.

Her hair had come loose, one knee of her expensive field pants was torn, and her beautiful polished boots were ruined with mud, blood, and panic. She kept glancing toward the tree line where the Winchesters still stood—calm, armed, waiting with that awful patience only people who truly knew what they were doing could afford.

It was worse than being abandoned.

It was being judged.

Down in the clearing, the nearest high-level demon rolled its shoulders and smiled with a face made from wrongness.

“Well?” it purred. “You wished to demonstrate.”

Dean watched from the edge of the woods, his blade resting against his shoulder.